Dominican Republic: Taste of Democracy

Citizens of the Dominican Republic do not have much practice in free elections—the last one was in 1924, under the watchful eye of occupying U.S. Marines. Then came the era of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. and for 31 years the small Caribbean country that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti was the demesne of the dictator, his relatives and his cronies. Last week, 19 months after Trujillo's assassination, Dominicans got another try at democracy. In calm and free elections, more than 1,000,000 voters went quietly to the polls to choose a constitutional...

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